Geoff Burling wrote:

I find this quite alarming. At the existing policy page [[Wikipedia:Auto-biography]] we find "editing an article about yourself or your organization is also generally considered improper and best avoided." Should we announce a change of policy now?

As currently worded, this policy page contradicts itself. On the one hand, it states:

If you are reasonably significant, someone will create an article about you sooner or later. You are free to contribute to that article, but please only add verifiable information and be especially careful to respect the neutral point of view.

This says unambiguously that it is okay for people to contribute to articles about themselves. Later, however, the article states,

Editing an article about yourself or your organization is also generally considered improper and best avoided.

Since there is no clear difference between "contributing" to the Wikipedia and "editing an article," these two statements contradict each other.

Another problem with this policy emerges when it goes beyond talking about individual autobiographies and says that people shouldn't edit articles about "your organization." The problem here is that there is a wide range in degrees of affiliation and "ownership" of organizations. Does this policy mean that only the founder of an organization should hesitate to edit an article about it? What about the president of an organization's board of directors? Its executive director? What about someone who is just an active volunteer or employee? Extending a little further outward, should all members of Greenpeace feel constrained from editing the article about Greenpeace? What about Democrats who want to edit the article about the Democratic Party? What about Jews, Catholics or Italians who want to edit articles about their religion, nation or ethnic group?

These aren't merely questions in the abstract. They are at the heart of what we are discussing with regard to the Church of Scientology. Strictly speaking, it isn't true that the "Church of Scientology" has discovered Wikipedia. A church is an inanimate object that doesn't "discover" things. What has happened is that some *members* of the church of Scientology have discovered Wikipedia. But how is this different from having members of the Catholic or Mormon Church edit articles about their particular religions?

--Sheldon Rampton